1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an intelligent lighting control apparatus and method and, more particularly, to an intelligent lighting control apparatus and method, which control an intelligent lighting unit including multiple sensors depending on time, place, scene, environment, or the like, based on the results of sensing by the sensors.
2. Description of the Related Art
Domestic and foreign lighting equipment companies efficiently and intelligently control lighting using a variety of sensors. Here, sensors are independent components operated separately from lighting equipment. Such a lighting control method requires a separate communication scheme to collect and combine information sensed by the sensors, and has difficulty in managing such sensing information in an integrated manner.
For example, Korean Patent No. 1234176 discloses technology for controlling lighting using information sensed by echo sensors for sensing the environment of surroundings around lighting equipment.
Further, Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2013-0015103 discloses technology for controlling bathroom lighting in which noncontact switches for generating electrical signals are installed so that various functions are performed due to the motion of a user as sensed by an infrared sensor, or sounds produced by the user and sensed by an acoustic sensor.
In this way, conventional technologies for controlling lighting are configured to control lighting using only information sensed by sensors, that is, raw data, so that lighting equipment is sensitive to a variation in scene and the probability of the lighting equipment malfunctioning is increased, and thus there is a problem in that the user may feel annoyed.
When lighting is controlled using raw data of a human body detection sensor that utilizes pyroelectricity, ON/OFF operations of lighting are controlled using only the raw data of the human body detection sensor, thus encountering the problem of error rate increasing in a direction toward the border of a sensing area. Further, there is a disadvantage in that, even when a person is not present, malfunctioning may occur due to a variation in surrounding brightness or the like, and energy waste and annoyance attributable to such malfunctioning may also occur.